SMALL GROUPS

this photograph is from a found photo album that I inhereited from someone else's junk pile (it's a bunch of dudes in mcdonalds baseball uniforms, gleefully drinkin' company sponsored beer). . .regretfully, I passed the album along to the thrift store before I realized how valuable it was as a whole. . .but this was one of the photographs I did keep. . .kind of says it all about corporate conformity. (my dad, too was a gung-ho corpo-bot. . .afraid to show too much of his own identity at work, and always wearing corporate logos at home. . .I don't think the man owned a sweater without a TEXACO logo on it.)

needless to say, I recently joined facebook. . .and it strikes me that now it's easier than ever to be light and distant friends with a whole lot of people. . .but this kind of friendship--or I guess networking is a more appropriate word--this is something that really confronts a person like me.

I do my best and am most myself in intimate, intense relationships. I like one-on-one contact the best. . . and I also enjoy rather small groups. participation in large anonymous groups like walking down a crowded foreign city street. . .is rather nice sometimes. but being in a kind of mega-social group. . .makes me uneasy, is unbearable light. perhaps it's because like so many of us who grew up in the suburbs, I lived without proper public social space (piazzas, parks, cafe's). . . and without access to virtual social spaces. my generation was accustomed to isolation. it was good for the imagination, good for character building, good for contemplation and tv-overload, good for getting fat. . .we were out of the practice of being friendly in a very light and flexible way that is now achievable online. no dire consequences, no face-to-face intensity. . .just virtual humans buzzing like absent-minded flies around the web.

my first experience being online was in 1994. I was so excited. . .I thought: I can now communicate with others mind-to-mind. . .no bodies in the way. . .I wanted to be a part of the revolution which would overthrow petty small talk and connect brains straight up. I thought I would meet the most cutting edge thinkers and mental explorers, people who wanted to change the world, invent a new society, dream together. . .and then I actually got online. . .in those days, you joined chat rooms. at $5.95/an hour I surfed around idealistically, expensively on my sluggish black and white laptop. and, what I found, were a lot of sex-hungry idiots screaming in ALL CAPS! reading group discussions always included lovecraft and king. I did not get lucky enough and certainly was not savvy to find at least one satisfying small group to be a part of. . .had to wait a decade for that. . .and kind of still looking.


-kt